Oct 12 2009
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family

Son Selected for African-American Leadership Group in Middle School

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My wife called me this evening and told me our son came home from school with a letter saying he had been selected for the African American leadership group. I laughed. My wife laughed. I asked her if she could tell by reading the letter if they understood that he’s white. She said she didn’t think they understood. She wondered if it was because she listed us as a multi-ethnic family, which I am not even sure what that means. My family is Arabic and hunky. Her folks are from Texas. We joke that the kids are Texa-hunkies.

I think it is my name, Elhajj.

I used to have this certain kind of experience in school. I went to the City University of New York in the early 90s. I also worked at the school’s administrative offices. I remember Betty Shabazz taught at Medgar Evers College and was basically treated like royalty. My name tends to stand out, especially in an organization with a huge focus on multiculturalism, which was at its height in the early 90s. Occasionally I would come to a meeting with university people and I would find someone in a big dashiki and would introduce myself and their face would fall with disappointment and they would be like, “YOU. YOU’RE ELHAJJ?!”

So this middle school thing just made me laugh.

This is his first year at the school. I imagine they are not looking too closely at the people they select. But, who knows? Here in the Pacific Northwest every one is very PC and there are just are not that many black people.

I went to a school function a few years back and was looking for one of the fathers, but I didn’t realize he was a black man. I kept asking the other parents (who I didn’t know all that well) if they knew where I could find this man and nobody would tell me he was black, which would have greatly simplified spotting him. Instead people got all nervous and were like, Ohhh, he’s about 6’4″, ah… humm.

Where I grew up people would not think twice about saying, “He’s the tall black man.”
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Oct 07 2009
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event

Tim Elhajj @ Seattle Book Fest: October 25, 2009

I will be reading and talking on Sunday, October 25th, with Matt Briggs, at a grassroots revival of the Northwest Book Fest. 

Check out the press release.

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Sep 30 2009
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family

In Sickness And In Health

8-30-2009 069 

Two weeks ago Holly got sick.

We thought it was the flu, but it was much worse. I won’t go into the details here, except to say she ended up in the hospital on antibiotics for a the better part of a week. She is home now, and mostly recovered. I was freaking out.

There are some things I do pretty good. At my best, I like to think I set the spiritual tone and cadence for the family. If there are schisms, I can usually work my magic to put things back together. I do this by acting goofy–having a seat on my daughter, as she lays in a snit on the couch. Or pratfalls into Aaron’s arms. I have no problem making an ass of myself, if I think it’ll do some good. When it comes to work, I’ve had a pretty good run. In the last ten years, I’ve only been unemployed once, maybe twice, and never longer than 6 months. Every month, I balance our checkbook to the penny.

But there are somethings I do terribly. Getting up early, for example. Or making breakfast. For middle school, the kids have to be out of the house at 7:20 A.M. With Holly gone, we were getting by on toast and Popsicles. Of course, this all happened a few weeks away from a major deadline at my work, which didn’t help. There is nothing more humbling than not being able to provide for your kids.

We got a lot of support. Holly coordinated from her hospital bed, using her cell phone. Our friends–the Francours and the Becks–pitched in to haul the kids around to various after school activities or feed them dinner. My mother-in-law jumped on a plane and came rushing to our aid.

Somehow we survived.

I took Holly to the ER in the middle of the night, when we first realized things were going sour. She was in pain and eventually the nurse offered her a shot of dillaudid. Holly always turns down the pain medication, which I have known about her for a long time, but it always catches me off gaurd when it happens. Who turns down morphine? I always feel like I have to explain to the nurse and doctors.

Holly, take your narcotics.

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Sep 23 2009
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family

Cougar Sighting 300 Yards From Where I Park My Car

cougar

Earlier this week, a cougar was sighted near my office.

The news report said there was some confusion over whether the animal sighted was a cougar or a coyote. It seems ridiculous to me that anyone might mistake a cougar for a coyote.

Today there was another cougar sighting. This on the heels of a cougar sighting in Seattle’s discovery park, earlier this year.

I hope I am not eaten in the parking lot!

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Sep 18 2009
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writing

Tim Elhajj in Sweet, a Literary Confection

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The latest issue of Sweet has hit the Web. I’ve got a story in this one, so I’m excited.

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Sep 11 2009
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movies

Ponyo

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There is nothing worse than a children’s movie that makes you feel less hip.

Ponyo is the new animated film from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese equivalent to America’s Disney or possibly Pixar. The mastermind behind Studio Ghibli is Hayao Miyazaki, which I guess makes him the Japanese Walt Disney. Miyazaki’s new film made me feel old and creaky, definitely uncool.

In contrast, I felt incredibly hip when I showed my kids one of his earlier works, My Neighbor Totoro, which features a wacky cat bus, crazy dust sprites, and some giant wood elf. I hoped to reclaim some of that old magic by taking Holly and the kids to see Ponyo a few weeks ago. Ponyo offers similar nonsense as Totoro, but with a sea theme: a wacky yellow submarine (not nearly as sublime as Totoro’s grinning cat bus), loveable tadpoles, and a crazy old coot who lives in the sea. Somehow none of it worked for me. In Totoro, the fanciful wood elves and cat bus added a pleasent child like element to a story that’s firmly grounded in the real world–the drama of a sick parent from the point of view of a young child. In Ponyo, the plot isn’t grounded in much of anything. Although it’s a beautiful story to watch, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The climax involves one five year old marrying another, while the parents watch. In Totoro, the hightened reality seems to describe a spiritual world accessible only by children. In Ponyo, they seem to be trying for a spirit world accessible by children and adults, but it just falls flat for me. A friend of mine, equally flummoxed, called it the best movie about a five year old getting married she’d ever seen. That about sums it up for me, too.

Watching the credits, I asked Aaron, who rarely offers an unkind opinion about anything, what he thought. He turned to me and said, “Well, Dad, it’s no G.I. Joe.”

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Sep 10 2009
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movies

Inglourious Basterds

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The early buzz on Quentin Tarantino’s latest picture, Inglourious Basterds, was about its excessive gore. So I worried. And then I saw the trailer with Brad Pitt jutting out his jaw and I grew even more concerned.

But I saw it recently and it’s fabulous.

No more gory then Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction and certainly less bloody then all of Kill Bill. Brad Pitt won me over as Lt. Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds, a handpicked team of Jewish-American soldiers who sneak behind enemy lines in occupied France to wreak havoc for the Nazis. Pitt is fine, but Christoph Waltz steals the show as Hans Landa, a delightful SS officer that you love to hate. He’s really terrible, one of the most delightful monsters since Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

The ending is surprising, but then when you leave the theater you find yourself wondering why no other WW2 film has done something similar. Lots of fun.

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Sep 08 2009
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family

Four Browns And a Green

9-7-2009 043, originally uploaded by tim_elhajj.

This afternoon I found our first few eggs.

They were secreted above the nesting box, where no chickens are allowed to go, but where they all seem to go anyhow. I am raising scofflaw, renegade chickens. This is God paying me back for a childhood of rebellion.

We have five eggs, but can’t be sure that all four chickens are laying. The green one is definitely from one of the Americana’s, either Quack or Kathy. We suspect the other four brown ones are all from Shirley. Bob is supposed to lay big white eggs, so we figure she has not yet made her contribution.

Very soon now: four hens a laying.

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Sep 04 2009
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writing

In Response to a Writing Group Question About How to Make Real Money as a Writer

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In 1995 I moved to Seattle from New York City, with an unfinished BA in English (9 credits shy) and a promise to send the remaining course work by mail.

I applied for a job with a software company.

Because I had nothing else, I brought a few poems to my first interview for a writing sample. One poem contained the word “goddamn,” and the fellow who was interviewing me said he didn’t mind but thought it might be a bad poem to use on a future interview. I hadn’t even realized.

The hiring manager at the software company asked me how much I expected to earn. I hadn’t given much thought to salary requirements and had only ever held hourly wage jobs. I told her the first number that popped into my head: twenty thousand. She smiled and told me she would give me twenty-four. I was so surprised and elated I had to restrain myself from saying, “thousand?” A year later I learned I was the lowest paid writer in a group that was notoriously underpaid. They gave me a ten thousand dollar raise my second year just to put me even with the rest. As it turned out, I was really good at interviewing software developers and coming up with clever ways to explain how to use the company’s financial software.

Now I work at the biggest software company on the planet. I make more money than I did in 1995 but somehow it’s still not enough. Two years ago my oldest son, who grew up in Steelton, asked me in all seriousness if I were rich. Two months ago my eleven-year-old daughter, who has lived her entire life in a suburb of Seattle, asked me with equal candor if we were poor.

Money is all about perspective.

Do what seems right. Keep trying. One day you end up right where you are supposed to be. Chances are, you will still have to think long and hard before you make certain purchases.

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Sep 02 2009
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movies

Julie & Julia

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What a great job Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep did in this.

I knew of Julia Child, but wasn’t a big fan, or even very knowledgeable about her cook book or television show. Nevertheless, her story really grabbed me, I think because of the chemistry between Tucci and Streep, and Streep’s spooky ability to portray Child, a huge stork of a woman, who doesn’t fit in, but always carries herself with purpose and poise.

The story is a contrast between the lives of an unknown blogger (Amy Adams as the titular Julie) and Child, as each tries to find her niche in life. The Child parts of the story are much more powerful than the anonymous blogger parts, but as my wife pointed out: the movie might not have worked with just Child’s story. It needed some sort of counterpoint and the social and economic contrast between Child (upper middle class, 50s era) and Julie (struggling middle class, 21st century) was understated but clearly important. I am undecided whether to lay blame at Adams feet or lazy screen writing, but Julie’s life just didn’t resonate with me. When Child finally gets her book deal, I want to cheer, weep, or a little of both. When Julie gets hers, I think: shit, I could have done that.

Still, really worth a look.

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